Main Street AI Podcast: Highlights from Interview with Jacob Murad
AUTHOR: PAULINA PENA
AI is becoming more mainstream in various industries, and the legal and accounting space is no exception. Jacob Murad, Managing Partner at KPA Lawyers joined Host and Managing Partner of the Main Street AI podcast, Stephen Whittier for an episode where they discussed how Bluestar, one of the most unconventional and fastest growing professional service firms in all of Canada is disrupting the space, combining a law firm with accounting, insurance, wealth planning and private equity all under one family-owned roof.
In this blogpost, we will share with you some important key takeaways from the podcast episode, focusing on AI trends, positive aspects of AI, some of the challenges Jacob has seen in implementing AI in the firm and some of the future trends he’s foreseeing. We will also highlight some of the strategies Bluestar has been incorporating into its plan, helping it grow and see success so quickly.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Overview on current trends in the AI space
-Litigation- litigators are using AI to put court documents together. These documents consist of research for laws and case laws and must be submitted to the judge.
-AI vs. Lawyers- Clients are using AI to make contracts such as a distribution agreements or shareholder agreements and sending it to lawyers or someone else within the law firm asking to review it and make some changes if necessary, with the purpose of being cost-conscious.
-Push and Pull when it comes to Law Firms- Most law firms charge by the hour and there’s a billable hour model. If AI can do the job in seconds, there’s a concern that the potential client will not want to see staff.
Positive Takeaways
-Certain monotonous tasks that lawyers or anyone in the business would have to do such as writing a letter and you need to create a visually appealing letterhead which would normally take a few hours due to formatting, could save you time.
-AI could help you generate captions and SEO-friendly words and hashtags for your social media. You could also tie this in with your marketing plan and Google ads, for example, which could help boost your sales. It could potentially expand the breadth of the legal industry in terms of who they’re servicing and giving people access to lawyers easier.
-Helpful in using it on the sales, marketing and operational side, specifically to generate PowerPoint presentations and social media plans.
-On the legal end, it hasn’t been implanted in the law firm yet, but it is useful for more time-consuming things as it provides a good base and it’s a helpful tool.
Challenges
-Many clients are sending in Chat GPT contracts and asking lawyers to review them going back to the point about being cost-conscious. You need to communicate more effectively as part of your strategy, or you will begin to lose clients and lose credibility.
-AI is making up laws and instances are getting flagged by judges in Canada and the United States, resulting in litigators getting penalized. This is not the fault of AI, but rather the lawyers delegating tasks and giving research to junior lawyers and students to put these documents together. Lawyers should be looking these documents over before anything gets submitted.
-Lawyers should be more conscious about more than just cost; they need to bring value so that they can beat AI. They need to bring a customized solution to help someone solve their problems, which is what AI is lacking as of right now. AI will still tell you to seek legal advice even after you ask questions.
-Lawyers are becoming over-reliant on technology. It’s the same thing with virtual firms where they don’t have an office and by removing all of the bells and whistles of a law firm, you move away from providing that service to the client. So now there’s an overall quality control where the quality of the service that the lawyer provides is decreasing because of an over-reliance on software.
The Bluestar Advantage
During the podcast episode, Jacob also spoke with Stephen on the strategy KPA Lawyers and Bluestar Equity has been implementing to gain so much success and move at such a quick momentum.
“I don’t know of any other firm in the country, except for a couple, that have grown at the speed at which we have and I can attribute that to acquisitions,” he says. “One of our strategies has been acquiring the practices of retiring lawyers and law firms where they’re aging out and looking for a solution. They have lots of clients, their firm is fine, but they now have to tell their clients that they’re retiring and that’s where we come in and acquire them. Most law firms as we know are partnerships, but we are a family-owned business that has grown three or four times the size over the past couple of years.”
Jacob also spoke about the success of Bluestar, attributing it to more than just a law-firm. Providing ancillary services is has also enabled the firm to see success so quickly. In providing these alternative services, Bluestar has been able to stand out as a go-to firm for any issues that clients may have.
“We maintain good relationships with our clients because we follow up with them,” said Jacob. “That’s where we also establish ourselves as the go-to people for whatever problem they may have. We also provide them free material and our quality of service is top-notch. We’ve also spent time fine-tuning our list of clients from firms we’ve acquired and now that we’ve cleaned up the list, we’re ready to launch some great products.”
What the future looks like for the firm and AI
When asked about any challenges there may be in the foreseeable future, Jacob explains that internal training will always be the toughest part. “There’s no shortage of service professionals,” he said. “There’s a lot of turnover in the legal and accounting industry and that means there’s a lot of training to be done. Therefore, that comes with a cost and time and if the person decides to leave, we have to start all over again. This not just at our firm, but it’s prevalent throughout the industry.”
Additionally, Jacob speaks about AI and some of its obstacles, explaining that within any industry, using AI is fine especially for brainstorming ideas, non-final content, improving grammar and general research, but it’s not the end-all-be-all. He recommends for professionals to take the time to review everything as AI should only supplement your work, not do the entire task.
At Bluestar, we’ve implemented an AI policy where employees are able to use AI tools to support their work which includes everything mentioned above, however, are informed that AI tools may not be used to provide or rely on professional advice which includes diagnosing matters, interpreting laws and regulations and replacing the professional judgement of lawyers, CPAs and licensed staff. In fact, employees are to remain fully responsible for the accuracy, legality and appropriateness of all work.
Jacob also stresses that staff need to be trained about providing quality of service, especially when responding to clients who are debating on whether to use AI or seek legal help. After all, professionals in these spaces are there to help people with their lives.
He ends the discussion explaining that AI will not be replacing professionals, but that shouldn’t lead to the diminishing of the level of service we provide.
“We have to show clients that what we’re doing is beyond what AI can do and that is a constant challenge but must also be in the culture of our practice.”